ThadBlog

For Halloween this week, here’s a clip from one of my favorite Columbia cartoons, Professor Small and Mr. Tall (1943), directed by John Hubley and Paul Sommer. This one got a pretty harsh review in Maltin’s book, and I can’t really see why. That ghost is funny as hell!

The most eerie aspect of this clip is how the characters resemble something out of Chuck Jones’ The Dover Boys (1942) (John McLeish even doing a voice), and both cartoons came out within a few months of each other. We know Jones was moonlighting with the UPA guys for Hell-Bent for Election (1944), but was he also doing some work on these Screen Gems shorts?

You can watch this great cartoon (minus the bit with the ghost as Hitler shooting himself… Hmm, guess they predicted the future…) at Pietro’s great site.

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I feel what Gentilella did better than anyone was emphasizing power. The fight scenes he animated are some of the best animation from any New York studio in the 40s and 50s. Here are two scenes that I know he did from Pop-Pie Ala Mode (1945) and Wotta Knight (1947). Both are wonderfully timed, and show why I think his animation has more punch (pun intended) than any other animator’s. (Thanks to Bob J. for identifications.)

To somewhat tie-in with Kevin’s post on timing to music, here is a scene from Famous Studio’s Moving Aweigh (1944). This was John Gentilella’s first piece of animation at Famous… Only a genius could come up with a scene like this on their first day on the job!

This piece also showcases Gent’s emphasis on power, an aspect I feel he was better than everybody at. I’ll be talking about this in future posts this week.

Today’s edition of cartoon plagiarism (or “How did they not get sued?!”) highlights Famous Studios’ Winner by a Hare (1953).

You probably remember the old Harveytoons logo with a rabbit, reclining on the letters of the logo in a Bugs Bunny fashion, thinking “Wow, what a cheap knockoff!” Well, your guess was pretty much on the mark.

This was the first cartoon with Moe Hare (voiced by Jackson Beck I believe) and dopey sidekick Tommy Tortoise (voiced by Sid Raymond). While the likeness of Moe to Bugs is bad enough, the short knocks-off the successful (?) Bugs Bunny/Cecil Turtle trilogy from the 1940s. It seems to be going for the sadistic nature of Bob Clampett’s entry, Tortoise Wins By a Hare (1943 - wow even ripping off the title), though failing with the usual “1-2-3″ 1950s Famous gag structure.

This cartoon does feature some great animation by Marty Taras though, particularly towards the middle of the short where Moe uses his ears as propellor.

The one thing that’s more disturbing than the ending of this cartoon, is that its head animator (the real director) is Myron Waldman, the guy responsible for giving us all those great Pudgy and Casper cartoons! This might be one of those cases where the writer had more creative input, in this case, Irv Spector (Famous’ best storyman, in my opinion), since he seemed to have more insight on the Warner writing style, as his name is on Famous’ best shorts of the 50s (Mice-Capades, Fido Beta Kappa, L’Amour the Merrier).

Moe and Tommy were in three more cartoons that weren’t as much of Warner knock-offs, other than the characters’ likeness. They were Rabbit Punch (1955), Sleuth But Sure (1956), and Mr. Money Gags (1957).

One of my favorite opening titles ever!

Welcome to the first installment of “Good Ol’ Fashioned Cartoon Plagiarism”… or “How Did They Not Get Sued?!”

It’s so much easier to take a successful, exisiting idea and put a face-lift on it… Which is exactly what the Terrytoon studio did when they gave the Heckle & Jeckle foil, Dimwit, his own short-lived series!

Jack Kinney’s Goofy at the Disney studio was the victim of the pilfering… It’s blatantly obvious what Terry was trying to immitate (David Gerstein also claims that it’s such a knock-off, that the opening music tries to copy the Goofy theme!)

Of course, I severely doubt Kinney would have had Goofy… Um, well you’ll have to wait and see! (Though the way things were going at Disney in 1954, I wouldn’t be surprised.)

Without further ado, here is the Terry classic How to Relax (1954). There is some crazy Tyer action in the first 1/4 of this one!

I think it’s high time for a new animator breakdown, and I think everyone will enjoy this one. Mike Kazaleh broke this one down for me awhile ago.

This is one of my absolute all-time favorites, and I think it’s not really necessary to explain why. Tex had technically already made this cartoon twice during his tenure at MGM, Rock-a-Bye Bear (1952) and Deputy Droopy (1955). But only Tex could take the same story and make it even better the next time!

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for these Lantz regulars to show their individuality under the masterful Avery, but I will say that Don Patterson’s animation is the funniest and best looking.